AUSTRALIA
Foreign interns restricted
Foreigners have been banned from working as interns for members of parliament, a Senate spokesman said yesterday, in a reform apparently aimed at blocking Chinese prying. The program placing young people in a much-prized position working for a federal legislator for three months had been open to all nationalities, as long as the applicant did not have a criminal record. The spokesman declined to comment on what prompted the alteration. The Financial Times in September last year reported that a New Zealand citizen who had previously interned at an Australian parliamentary committee had links to a Chinese military spy school, prompting a review of the intern system, which concluded that standards should be bought in line with the rest of the government. Chinese students had often applied to the program and many worked as interns over the years.
AUSTRALIA
PNG, Solomons ink deal
Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands on Wednesday signed onto a joint undersea Internet cable project, funded mostly by Australia, that forestalls plans by Chinese telecom Huawei Technologies to lay the links itself. Australia is to pay two-thirds of the project cost of A$136.6 million (US$100.9 million) under the deal, signed on a visit to Brisbane by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Rick Houenipwela and PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill. “We spend billions of dollars a year on foreign aid and this is a very practical way of investing in the future economic growth of our neighbors in the Pacific,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters. The project, for which Australian telecom Vocus Group is building the cable, is to link the two nations to the Australian mainland, besides connecting the Solomons capital Honiara with the archipelago’s outer islands.
CHINA
MeToo fells professor
Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou has suspended a prominent primatologist in a victory for the nation’s slow-building #MeToo movement. The university yesterday announced that it would suspend Zhang Peng (張鵬) and revoke his honorary titles after confirming two complaints from female students. It did not disclose the allegations, but said it had “zero tolerance” for teacher misconduct and would safeguard students’ legal rights. Zhang held visiting positions at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Kyoto, and had been inducted into the Chang Jiang national fellowship program. The #MeToo discussion has drawn in Chinese state media, including the People’s Daily, which urged schools to listen to “young people’s voices” and address complaints without being evasive.
UNITED STATES
Python found in hard drive
A passenger with a python hidden inside an external hard drive was stopped from boarding a Florida plane headed to Barbados. The Miami Herald on Sunday reported that officers screening luggage at Miami International Airport found an “organic mass” inside a checked bag. A bomb expert then examined the bag and discovered the live snake in the hard drive, Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Sari Koshetz said, adding that the snake was “obviously not an imminent terrorist threat,” but its interception prevented a possible wildlife threat. The passenger was fined and the snake was taken into custody by Fish and Wildlife Services.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese